Sat­ur­day, May 19 through Mon­day, May 21 is the cel­e­bra­tion of the fes­ti­val of Shavuot. Shavuot is the fes­ti­val God com­mand­ed Israel to observe, 7 weeks after Passover. (Deuteron­o­my 16:10; Exo­dus 23:16).

The fes­ti­val of Shavuot cel­e­brates the begin­ning of the har­vest. Shavuot takes place 50 days after Passover. Dur­ing Shavuot, the peo­ple of God take a por­tion of the “first fruit­s” of the grain har­vest and wave them before God in thank­ful­ness, with eager expec­ta­tion of a great har­vest at the end of the har­vest season.

50 days after our Passover lamb died on the cross, came one of the great­est days in human his­to­ry, the day the Holy Spir­it was sent to dwell in the hearts of men, the day of Pen­te­cost. Jesus Christ is the first fruits of the res­ur­rec­tion. The believ­ers who were filled with the Holy Spir­it at Pen­te­cost were the first fruits of the har­vest of souls.

In Judaism, Shavuot is also asso­ci­at­ed with the giv­ing of the Law on Mount Sinai. A Law that the peo­ple of God could nev­er ful­fill. They could not ful­fill the Law of love because their hearts were hard. The new covenant promise of Shavuot is that God would cleanse us, take out of us the heart of stone, place in us a soft heart, write his Laws upon our hearts and empow­er his chil­dren to walk in his com­mands. He accom­plish­es this through the death and res­ur­rec­tion of the Lamb and the send­ing of the Holy Spirit.

We live in the sea­son of har­vest, the time of res­ur­rec­tion and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. God has not come mere­ly to live with us, but to live with­in us and empow­er us to ful­fill the Law of love by faith and the pow­er of the Holy Spirit.

These are the days of the preach­ing of the good news and the ingath­er­ing of the peo­ple of God from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

My friends, those who are tru­ly engaged and focused on the har­vest do not have time to con­cern them­selves with the things of the flesh, includ­ing man made reli­gion. Broth­ers, lead our con­gre­ga­tions from an inward focus and inspire us to turn out­ward and be on mis­sion with a vision of the kingdom.

Christ died for our sins. I can’t sit and dwell on my deprav­i­ty and fail­ure as a means to my sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. I must adopt the agen­da of my King and the work of the har­vest in order to tru­ly lay aside the sin, which so eas­i­ly entan­gles me, and run this race. I want to be on guard for the schemes of Satan, but a con­tin­u­al fear and focus on my sin will nev­er set me free. We can move on from self-flog­ging and lay­ing again and again the foun­da­tion of repen­tance from dead works. Move on to the har­vest field.

What a won­der­ful day it will be when none of my thoughts are focused on me. Increase the spir­i­tu­al health of your flock by fill­ing their thoughts with the excel­len­cies of their King and har­ness­ing their resources and ener­gy for the king­dom of Christ.

Bro. Bil­ly